The invention relates to a magnetic head having a head face and comprising a support which has a support face, a magnetoresistive element spaced apart from the tape contact face, and a flux guide being adjacent to the head face and having one end portion which is thinner than another portion of the flux guide.
A magnetic head with a magnetoresistive element (MRE) which is located at some distance from the tape contact face and in which a flux guide is present between the head face and the MRE--the so-called "yoke-MRH"--is known per se and is used for reading information which is present in a magnetic information carrier. Magnetic flux from the information carrier is passed through the MRE via the flux guide, resulting in a change of the resistance of the MRE, which resistance change is converted into a read signal.
A general structure of a "yoke-MRH" is known from JP-A 62-241119 (herewith incorporated by reference). The MRE is present between a magnetic substrate and two flux guides which are present on this substrate. Due to the small distance between the MRE and the magnetic substrate in this structure, a part of the flux provided by the information carrier will perpendicularly cross the MRE during reading instead of being guided parallel to the element through the MRE, which may cause a distortion of the read signal. If this MRE is provided with strip-shaped electric conductors, a barber pole structure, a relief, particularly a wave-shaped relief will be produced in that part of the flux guide which is present on the MRE. This relief may also cause distortion of the read signal.
Another general structure of a "yoke-MRH" is known from JP-A 62-246115 (herewith incorporated by reference). In this structure the MRE, as viewed from the substrate, is partly located on the flux guides--instead of between the substrate and the flux guides--so that the above-mentioned causes of distortion of the read signal do not occur. In this structure the base on which the MRE is provided is first planarized before providing the MRE. This is achieved by filling up the space between the two flux guides. If this were not done, the MRE could show discontinuities, for example, in the form of cracks due to the large relief so that its operation is influenced detrimentally. However, planarization requires an extra process step, thus resulting in an increase of the manufacturing time and the manufacturing costs.
A magnetic head described in the opening paragraph is known from JP-A 62-46420 (herewith incorporated by reference). Since in this known magnetic head the MRE is provided between the flux guides, a planarization step is not required. However, a drawback of this structure is that the MRE has a large relief so that this structure also has the previously mentioned drawbacks of this large relief. A further drawback of this structure is that due to the large relief serious problems will be encountered if a barber pole structure is also to be provided on the MRE.